I am exploring Lemmy right now and what I see is very worrying to me, but I also don’t understand wth is going on with some instances here. I don’t know if it’s smart to post this, but here we go.
I am partial to Marxist and anarchist ideology, but lemmygrad looks completely unhinged to me. Is it a parody? Some content is fine and some of it is insane.
On the other hand, beehaw looked super inviting from the outside and I even applied to join them. Then, I looked closer and that instance’s moderation looks totalitarian and rigid in the other way. (I understand why they blocked lemmygrad though…)
I’m seeing this impact other communities in different ways and there’s some kind of witch hunt happening on both sides…
I want to interact with people that can respect each-other and that can hold open-minded discussions about any topics without devolving into some tribal war.
Edit:
I realize my post is not a simple question… Let me clarify some thoughs:
-I do not mean beehaw is far-right. The just seem strict and that’s their right.
-I worry profiles can “inherit” the bad reputation of instances they interacted with and get pre-emptively banned.
-People are used to reddit and tend to centralize. Is the “just switch community” really an option?
-English is far from my first language and I might’ve judged things too quickly/harshly so take my criticism with a grain of salt.
Outside of agreeing to the rules (modlogs are open to see), knowing who they block, and having some trust in the instance admin, joining any instance is fine and you can follow almost any instance’s communities.
Also the hosting country of the instance, both from a speed perspective and a privacy perspective. At the moment, your data is in the hands of that host, with no way to actually delete it, and no way to port it to another instance.
Edit: also take into account the owner and support of the instance in regards to server power upgrades. Lemmy.world’s owner for example has been great in dealing with the huge influx of users during the past week.